Private landowners provide over 20 per cent of social housing in rural communities and an even bigger slice of the overall let property – but it is at risk and could, potentially, disappear over the next three years unless the government takes a fresh look at its own green agenda.

It was one of the issues discussed with Defra Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, when CLA senior officers met with him at the CLA Game Fair.

The problem hinges around the drive to improve the insulation qualities of let housing – all of which has to come up to an EU standard by 2018.

The problem, of course, is that, like so many bits of EU legislation, one size certainly does not fit all.

It’s okay to demand cavity wall insulation and suchlike if you own and let relatively modern houses – but so many of the private houses let by traditional landowners are country cottages with either solid, or rubble filled, walls.

These cottages were designed and built in such a way as to keep their occupants warm in the winter and cool in the summer, however much legislation the EU or the government introduce will make no difference to the ability of the owners of these properties to meet standardised insulation procedures or, indeed, to insulate a cavity which isn’t there.

In rural communities, the private sector delivers what the public sector cannot – and CLA members alone provide 22 per cent of let social housing in rural areas. In order to bring those properties up to the required standard by 2018 would cost many tens of thousands of pounds for each house, effectively making them financially unviable as let housing.

Unless we can persuade the government to change this methodology there is a real risk that houses which do not comply with the energy efficiency criteria of the Green Deal will simply disappear from the rented sector.